This invention relates to an improved mechanism for replaceably supporting a submerged pouring tube with respect to the pour opening of a bottom pour vessel equipped with a slidable gate closure.
Bottom-pour teeming vessels are often equipped with slidable gate closures for controlling the discharge of liquid metal from the pour-openings thereof. Such closures may be used on tundishes from which metal is teemed into continuous casting molds as well as on ladles, degassing vessels and the like.
It is usually desirable when pouring molten metal to protect the metal against oxidation caused by its exposure to air as it is poured from the teeming vessel to the receiving vessel. In some applications, such as the pouring of aluminum killed steels, such protection is imperative. Protection against oxidation is normally accomplished by confining the metal flow stream within an elongated refractory pour tube that extends from the pour opening of the teeming vessel and has its lower end submerged below the level of the liquid metal in the receiving vessel. Apparatus of this type is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,501,068 to J. T. Shapland and assigned to the assignee herein.
The use of submerged pouring tubes in association with slidable gate closures is known but their use has been characterized by a significant disadvantage in that the tubes are subject to erosion and other deterioration and must be replaced frequently. Replacement of the tubes in prior art applications, such as are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,805 to J. T. Shapland and U.S. Pat. No. 3,907,022 to W. Simons et al, are generally unreliable and expose personnel required to make the change to extreme heat and the danger attendant with having to work close to hot metal.
It is to the improvement of such apparatus, therefore, that the present invention is directed.